The little mermaid?

Long time no see! I am sorry but the past weeks have been kind of busy as I found a new job. Yeah thumbs up! I will start next Tuesday, yes the day after tomorrow and I am pretty excited as it fits exactly what I was hunting. Hope my new colleagues will be nice to me!

Anyway, I am dead sick since this morning and I am not so sure I will be much better on Tuesday's morning but I do not really care. I will be working again after the longest 8 unemployed months of my life. There is no word to describe how happy I am.

But enough babbling onto makeup. I have to confess I have been pretty lazy and into low maintenance for the past weeks but of course I have an excuse. First I hardly leave my place, I am a recluse :p. And secondly, my skin has been freaking out like never :s. I am really upset and I am sure my bad mood does not help the healing process. I blame the huge temperature steps for the past month, from freezing cold to boiling hot, to be responsible for this mess.

In order to cheer me up I came out with a lagoon inspired makeup that reminds me the colours of the Litttle Mermaid's cartoon. I forgot to do swatches but the colours are not that unique so I hope the description will be enough.

(sorry for the hair showing up but I was in a "natural wavy hair" day :p)

On a green turquoise base like the Turquoise gel liner from CS,
- the bare liner on the inner third
- on the outer third a deep blue-green teal colour like Birds&Berries from MAC (2010, collection Give me Liberty)
- on the middle third, a light metallic turquoise, ME600 from Shu Uemura
- to blend the colours towards the browbone, hydropowder eyeshadow H9 Glistening sand from Shiseido (light gold)
- same colours along the lower lashline
- in the lower waterline, blue turquoise gel liner, fluidline Blue Peep from MAC
- along the upper lashline, dark blue gel liner, CS gel liner Deep Blue
- mascara (Volume Collagene Waterproof from l'Oreal crap!)

Full face pics rocking my summer waves :p :

For the base: camouflage cream palette MUFE + Unifiance Skin like foundation 01 from La Roche Posay (discontinued) + Météorites pearl powder in 01.
For the dark circles : Select Cover up from MAC NW 20 + Powderflage from Benefit
For the cheeks : Terracotta 00 make up artist from Guerlain (hollow and lightly everywhere) + + Embelliseur Abricot from Agnes B (on the apples) + Lustre Drops Sun Rush from MAC (limited edition, highlight)
On the lips: Rouge B Corail Soleil from Agnès B (light coral with a metallic golden sheen )

And you're done! Fun and summery ^^

A light and wearable summer look for me. So sorry about the way my skin looks. Hell, it is really disgusting but I do not want to fall into photoshopping. For me beauty blogging is pointless if you start to cheat on your own pics more than luminosity and contrast. That's my personal opinion :).

See ya :)

Bright lining!

Last FOTD I promised to do an other look with the UD Alice in Wonderland BOS but I was in a pigment mood so it was pigments :p. Morevover, it would let me talk about a mineral brand I really like : Archetype Cosmetics.
I ordered only twice from them and each time I splurge on e/s samples as they just cost 25 cents. Yes you read it well! To be 100% honest, the site is horrible to navigate and the shipping delays were really bad (about 8 weeks or so) but it is not the case anymore. I get my last order in about 2 weeks which is normal with the unefficient French postal service!
If you click on the website link you will notice that everything is purple and black so the goth inspiration is not hidden and the eyeshadow range reflects it so well. Everything to perform striking and gorgeous eye makeup :p.
For my makeup I used : Beetle Wings (grey-taupe colour with green flecks), Chubby Skeleton (purple-burgundy with red-pink highlights) & Corpse Candle (gorgeous teal blue with glitters). It turns out like that :

Yes only one pic as I was still fighting with my swollen finger at that time.
- on the whole lide : Beetle Wing applied foiled
- in the outer V blended inwards : Chubby Skeleton
- as a liner on the lower (smudged) and the upper lashline : Corpse Candle applied foiled on top of a turquoise pencil (fluidline Blue Peep from MAC gorgeous)
- on the bottom lashline : inner, Beetle Wing & outer, Chubby Skeleton
- as a highlighter, 10 Californian Blonde from Sephora
- mascara (Volume Shocking Brosse Exacte from l'Oreal which is not so fresh looking anymore)

On daylight it looks soft and subtle in my opinion:

(too much light for the second pic :p)

For the base: camouflage cream palette MUFE + Unifiance Skin like foundation 01 from La Roche Posay (discontinued) with a single drop of Lustre Drops Pink Rebel from MAC (limited edition) + Météorites pearl powder in 01.
For the dark circles : Select Cover up from MAC NW 20 + Powderflage from Benefit
For the cheeks : Fresh bloom allover colour Almond Blossom 03 from Clinique (hollow) + + Embelliseur Abricot from Agnes B & Blush MAC Fun & Games (on the apples) + Mineralize Skinfinish Soft and Gentle from MAC (limited edition, highlight)
On the lips: a random lipbalm. A no lipstick day for me :)

Do you wear bright glittery eyeliner? I think it brings back to life soft smokey eyes in springtime and makes them more wearable for daytime!

See ya :)

My e/s disappointments...

Does it happen to you too from time to time? I read so much about both the e/s I will talk about underneath that I was sure to love them but it fails. They wera one of my last mini haul and I am really disappointed.

I was lurking in Sephora with a sale coupon and thought about getting new shimmery highlighter for my brow bone. To me this little trick is the best invention since sliced bread as it lifts your eyes and also helps to hide lil tweezing imperfections when you suffer llike I do from bushy brows. Anyway, I do own Highlight from NYw, which is a pale mat yellow often compared to MAC Vanilla (and of course nothing alike) but I like it a lot. It matches pretty well my skin and brings some light. So my quest ws two new shimmery golden higlighters one with warm reflects ans one with cold ones.

Underneath the two I choose :

- Nanogold from MAC (repromoted with onhe Color Forecast collection): light gold with pink reflects (on the left)
- nd one of the new Sephora Colorful Mono n°10 Californian Blonde : light golden-white with silvery reflects (on the right).

Both are really so-so not to say worth but not for the same reason.

The Nanongold does not show up at all my skin!!! And I am so pale it is a pity. I have to layer it hundreds times and it shows up pink not gold at all. The texture is really hard to work with I am happy that I bought it for highlighting purpose and not as a lid colour :s.
For the Californian Blonde, the colour is really pretty more frosty than shimmery but I like it a lot. So what's wrong about it? The texture!!! OMG, when I went back home I decided to swatch it with my finger and the shadow is rough and bumpy to the touch. Urgh :(! Like if it has had an allergic reaction or a huge acne breakouts :p. It really annoys me. And I am really surprised not to have read anything about this point before (maybe it is just mine whoch suffers from this strange disease :p).

Quite a huge disappointment really happy not to have splurging on for more and not to have paid fulll price for them. I hate throwing money out of windows so I will use them but I am used to better than this (and considering one of this shadow is from MAC, argh!)

Do you tried one of them? Do you like them? Anyone who gives a go to the new metallic Sephora Mono maybe?

See ya :)

Hay fever and other spring-time allergies

Spring is here and that is great! But for many of us, including me, spring rhymes with hay fever and bad allergies. So this morning I thought that sharing with you some of my tips and tricks to make me feel better in this situation could be cool :p

What may happen? If you are lucky, your nose will just run a lil and your throat will itch. In that case, it is fine and you can survive with low concentrated anti-histamines

But in my case it can sadly go a step further... If you have strong symptoms, you have of course to go see a specialist. I am not anything close to a doctor keep that in mind... Anyway, here are some tips I used on myself when I went through a not too intense crisis :

Red, watery and itchy eyes? First you put your make up and your contact lenses apart. Above all, you do not switch for waterproof because it is even harder to remoce and your eyes are enough irritated. Same things apply to contacts, they are by nature irritant, and I've never heard about anyone who dies because of glasses' wear.
Then you have to "invest" (not much, do not freak out) on 2-3 products which will help you getting better. In order of appearance:
- eyedrops for irritation (like Dacryoserum which is a free over-the-counter medecine) you have to instil in your eyes.
- 2 soaked cotton pads with cornflower water to do eye compresses for your itching eyes at night
- and finally a repairing eye cream (SVR palpebral is meant to be used for this purpose).
And that's it.
Once your irritations have soothed, you keep rincing your eyes for 2-3 more days with physiological saline (you can find it in drugstores in the babycare alley). Then you can go back to make and contacts! Yeah...One last point you may not use highly active eyecream like anti-aging ones as they can further irritate this area

Eczema or tiny little red bumps on your face? First you forget your traditional routine and switch to something ultra mild for your skin.Same thing has above it won't cost you an arm :
- a solid soap-free cleanser (the Dove cream beauty bar or the green Aderma one are great)
- a soft cleaning water if you can not stand not putting face makeup (Créaline H2O fromBioderma)
- a source water or thermal water spray
- a soothing and healing cream from irritated skin
You soak a cotton pad with cleaning water and you clean your face. Then you wash with your soap free cleaner and pat dry (do not rub you skin!). Then you gently spray some water and remove excess with a tissue. Put some cream on the itching areas. My favourites contains zinc and copper which are known for their healing properties (Dermalibour and Cu-ZN cream from Uriage are great)
The main drawback of both these cream are their heavy consistency which leaves the skin greasy so putting makeup on is too hard but you have to choose what you want :p
That is it for my tricks, on me everything is gone in 2 to 3 days with anti-histamines as a co-agent.

If you suffer from cosmetic allergy, the second routine for face reaction works real good! You can apply a thicker overall layer of cream at night time and sleep in it. Next morning your skin will look so much better. I tested and approved it after a disastrous trial of the Iris Weleda face mask :p

See ya :)

Advanced night repair eye recovery complex from Estee Lauder

Quite a long time since my last post but guess what I am busy doing nothing. I even shut down this blog but a dear friend of mine sounded a lil sad about it so here I am back :p. I will try to catch up with my French blog posts and I am hugely late :)
So here is a review I made a while ago on an other eyecream. You may know by now how much I am addicted to these little creams. I think it is my favorite/most-wanted skincare piece right after spot treatment for stupid skin like mine. Anyway enough rambling, here we go!

What do I think about it? The packaging is the classical one you can expect from Estée Lauder, kind of plain glass pot with golden lettering. The cream texture is very ice, something inbetween a thin cream and a gel, but it comes in a pot which means you have to pour your fingers in unless you have a sparing spatula. From a company as pricey as Estée Lauder, providing the spatula would be nice I think :s. It sinks straight into the skin without any rubbing action which is great and leaves the skin smooth. I can not talk about make-up affinity as I used it at night time only but nothing weird happens to my eyes during this trial :p. No obvious smell and you need the tiniest amount to do the job as wiht most eyecreams.

Does it work? Neither better nor worse than all the stuffes I tried before. For the anti-wrinkle parameter, I can not say as I am wrinkle free for now. It helps a little with dehydration but not at all with dark circles.
Yes, it does provide hydration but nothing over the top in my opinion. My undereye area still feels over dehydrated the next morning. Neverthless, it is sweet to use apart from the non hygenical packaging and leaves a nice fresh feeling before crawling in the bed ^^. Apart from that, nothing to jump around about for something that expensive. But I have to reckon I am not the main targeted user :p.

Do I recommend it? Not really to be a 100% honest. I do not see why it is so expensice

Prix: 49€ for 15ml Estée Lauder France website. Also avalaible at Sephora

PS: I got it in a Christmas kit along with a cream, a serum and a face wash. It is still not empty and I used it for about 2 months so a little goes a long way but all in all, it is still not my long searched fr HG :)
PS bis: I just read you are supposed to use it morning and night!!! Crazy for something called night repair, doesn't it? Anyway it may explain my poor results. I should have checked that before. Maybe using it twice a day will perform better ^^